


That's Where I'll Be

by DameRuth



Series: Bliss [20]
Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Adventure Aftercare, Fluff, Found Family, Multi, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-05
Updated: 2020-06-05
Packaged: 2021-03-04 07:08:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,907
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24559681
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DameRuth/pseuds/DameRuth
Summary: An early piece of Bliss!verse holiday fluff.  Assumes familiarity with "The Christmas Invasion," and with the Bliss setting in general.[Continuing the Teaspoon imports - originally posted 2007.11.09.]
Relationships: Ninth Doctor/Jack Harkness/Rose Tyler
Series: Bliss [20]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/14078
Kudos: 19





	That's Where I'll Be

**Author's Note:**

> The first of the Bliss stories that will feature some familiar events and characters -- though not in exactly the same ways we've seen before . . . Some hints of things that will be elaborated in future stories, as an extra prezzie.

“Tea’s ready,” Rose told the Doctor in a solicitous tone of voice, balancing a steaming cup on a saucer as she cocked her head to look at him.  
  
He lifted the cold pack from the side of his face and raised his head from where it lolled on the back of Jackie’s sofa. He was already developing a mass of impressive red-and-purple bruising along one high cheekbone, souvenir of a pommel-blow from the Sycorax ship’s captain.  
  
It hadn’t exactly been the peaceful Christmas visit with her mum Rose had been expecting.  
  
The Doctor had won the ritual swordfight and sent the Sycorax packing, but now he was paying the price. He had his left ankle up, resting on a cushion in front of him on the low table, and he groaned a little under his breath as he reached to take the cup and saucer from Rose.  
  
Despite his battered condition, the Doctor’s smile was heart-meltingly sweet. “Thanks. Will say this for your mum, she can do up a proper cuppa when the mood takes her.”  
  
His hair was loose and shaggy, the heavy golden pin with the round Seal-decorated head tossed casually on the table — along with the sword that had been in the Doctor’s hand when the dismayed Sycorax transmatted them back to Earth. Rose had brought it out of the TARDIS to show Jackie, and had nearly taken out the light fixture in the ceiling as she recounted the events on the ship — complete with illustrative gestures using the Doctor’s trophy.  
  
The sword, in all its barbaric, tasseled glory, and the rich gleam of the pin — real gold, no doubt — looked very strange sitting on top of the usual scatter of gossip magazines, television guides, bills, and junk mail. The Doctor looked nearly as strange, sitting on Jackie’s sofa with his hair loose, in just jeans and jumper. His boots and coat were drying in the laundry area, following an extensive sponging off.  
  
“She’s not half bad with the biscuits, either,” Jackie said, dryly, coming up behind Rose with a plate of brightly decorated Christmas treats, which she plopped unceremoniously down on the crowded table next to his injured foot.  
  
“Did I _say_ anything against your biscuits?” the Doctor shot back, just as dryly.  
  
Jackie rolled her eyes at him, and headed back to the kitchen where Jack and Mickey were helping her cook. She’d drafted as much help as possible, since it was going to take extra work to get food on the table at a decent hour after the day’s disruptions.  
  
Rose suppressed a grin and stepped carefully over the Doctor’s propped leg so she could settle on the floor at his right side, her back against the seat of the sofa and her cheek resting on his thigh.  
  
The Doctor noticed the slight hitch in her step, and frowned even as he stroked her hair affectionately.  
  
“Stop that,” he growled, and took a sip of his tea. “I’ve lived through worse’n a sprained ankle. I don’t need you takin’ any of the pain out of it.”  
  
Rose didn’t say anything, just got on her stubborn face and radiated a feeling like a solid brick wall down the link. The Doctor sighed and took another sip of tea.  
  
“Fine, be that way,” he grumphed. “All this coddling, you’d think I was nine _thousand_ years old and been up against half the Sontaran war fleet, instead of some Sycorax bully-boys out looking for a little cheap real estate.”  
  
Rose rubbed her cheek against the Doctor’s leg and couldn’t help smiling. He’d been grouching for a while now, but the hand stroking her hair was gentle, and he sipped his tea appreciatively.  
  
“The Sycorax might not be high up the scale of baddies,” she pointed out, ‘but they were bad enough, what with that blood control and getting ready to make us all slaves.”  
  
Just then, Jack slipped out of the kitchen to join them.  
  
“How’s our hero doing?” Jack asked. He shifted the Doctor’s cold pack and saucer onto the table and plopped himself down on the sofa, snagging a biscuit in the process. He devoured it in three bites, without waiting for an answer to his question. His casual approach and misdirection didn’t quite cover over his slight limp, and the Doctor glared at him.  
  
“Not you, too,” he said. “I’ve been tellin’ Rose to stop siphoning pain off through the link . . .”  
  
Jack shrugged defiantly, a gesture somewhat ruined by the casual way he was sucking frosting off of this fingers at the same time. “You saved the Earth,” he said when his mouth was clear again. “You deserve to be pampered a little.”  
  
“It wasn’t _that_ dramatic,” the Doctor said in a long-suffering voice. “Just showed ‘em who was boss.”  
  
“Did you _ever_!” Jack said, easing a little closer, his eyes shining at the memory. “ _’It is defended’_ . . .! That was great. Gave me the chills.”  
  
“Mmm,” Rose agreed, “me, too.” The memory of the Doctor, standing straight and dark and tall, sword in hand, laying down the law in a voice ringing with authority, was still clear in her mind. She couldn’t imagine a more heroic image.  
  
He’d held the pose proudly, until the Sycorax transmatted them back down to the surface — and then began swearing a blue streak as the ankle he’d strained during the swordfight finally gave way under him. Rose and Jack caught him before he could fall, and immediately began using their shared link to ease the Doctor’s pain by pulling some of it into their own nervous systems.  
  
With their support, he’d hobbled to the TARDIS, and made a short, choppy hop through the Vortex into Jackie’s spare bedroom. “Damned if I’m going up all those stairs,” he’d growled by way of explanation.  
  
Jackie’d run to meet them and been horrified at her first sight of the Doctor, who was thoroughly sprayed with blood — none of it his, Rose explained, twice, before Jackie calmed down. He’d been splashed when he’d upset the blood control device during the ritual swordfight.  
  
That led to Jackie offering a loan of some of Howard’s spare clothing so the Doctor would have something clean to wear. The Doctor rejected the idea with unconcealed horror, and Rose had had to step in and act as mediator. When she was done, they’d reached a compromise whereby the Doctor would change into fresh clothing from the TARDIS, while Jackie ran the bloodied articles through the wash. Neither side was completely happy, but it kept the peace.  
  
With the Doctor cleaned up, and following a quick check with the Superphone to see that Harriet Jones and her staff members had indeed been transmatted back where they belonged and not somewhere inappropriate (such as the middle of the Pacific Ocean), the festivities had resumed their course. Stranger things had happened before, after all, and it _was_ Christmas.  
  
“You two had your moments up there,” the Doctor said. He fixed Rose with an appreciative look, eyebrows arched. “I noticed you givin' Harriet Jones a good piece of your mind over that plasma cannon she wanted to fire off. Wish I'd been able to listen with more than half an ear . . ."  
  
Rose gave a sniff. "Humans. Always shootin' things. Makes me embarrassed to be one some days."  
  
The Doctor grinned widely, despite his bruises, and rested his head back against the sofa, closing his eyes. "Your mum's right -- I'm a bad influence." He didn't sound at all contrite.  
  
"Hey! What about me?" Jack said, put out.  
  
"Yeah, I'm a bad influence on you, too. Got you savin' the world instead of selling it."  
  
"That's not what I meant."  
  
"I know it wasn't. Saw you usin' your powers for good, though, what with distracting the guard and disabling the blood control while I was playin' to the peanut gallery."  
  
"The guard wasn't a bad guy, really," Jack said, in good humor. "He had nice teeth."  
  
The Doctor's eyes were still closed, but he sent a distinct ( _eyeroll_ ) impulse through the link.  
  
"Oh, and while we're on the subject of your various conquests,” he added, “that was good work from your Torchwood boyfriend, disabling the cannon reactor at the source, just in case."  
  
"Oh, for . . .!" Jack threw up his hands in irritation. "Ianto is _not_ my boyfriend. I kissed him that one time, as a thank-you. I didn't even give him any tongue. Hardly. Not enough to matter . . ."  
  
"Really. An' how much is enough to matter?" the Doctor asked.  
  
Jack, with a wicked gleam in his eye, was quick to take up such a blatant invitation. He reached over and removed the teacup from the Doctor's unresisting hand. He set it carefully on the table, and then in one fluid movement swung round so he was straddling the Doctor, one knee bracketing either side of the Doctor's hips, his hands resting on the back of the sofa to either side of the Doctor's head.  
  
"Oh, I'd say about _this_ much," Jack purred, and leaned forward to engage the Doctor's mouth in a long, heartfelt kiss. However, he kept his body levered clear of the Doctor's, the only points of contact being their lips and Jack's knees brushing the other man's hips.  
  
It was a calculated tease, and the Doctor responded, reaching around and resting his left hand on the small of Jack's back, though he didn’t actually pull him closer. At the same time, the Doctor’s right hand reached over and clasped Rose's, threading his fingers through hers. The contact on her bare skin sent a pleasurable shock through Rose's body, and she pushed herself up to perch on the arm of the sofa. From that angle, she could brush her fingertips along Jack's wrist, completing the circuit of skin contact between the three of them.  
  
Both men made low, appreciative noises in their throats, mouths still locked together. Rose shivered and a feral grin spread across her face. _I know what I want for Christmas,_ she thought . . .  
  
Jack threw his head back and gasped for air as the sense of her thought, if not the precise details, hit him. Then he dove back down for a second, deeper kiss.  
  
The Doctor’s hand clenched on Jack’s shirt, and yanked it roughly free from the waistband of Jack’s jeans, allowing him access to the bare skin of Jack’s spine. His fingertips skated over the major neural nodes, spurring Jack to even greater eloquence with lips and tongue.  
  
The nodes might not have anything like the same sensitivity in humans as they did for Time Lords, but the skin contact alone was enough to trigger a strong reaction. Rose closed her eyes and her head rolled back as she slipped into the role of boosting and modulating the sensations passing between the other two.  
  
None of them paid any attention to the faint sound of electronic music playing in the kitchen. A moment later, Mickey wandered into the living room, where reception was better, carrying his mobile and frowning at the unfamiliar number its display was showing him.  
  
He recoiled in horror when he looked up and saw the activity on the sofa.  
  
“ _God!_ I could’ve gone my whole life without seeing that! Get a _room,_ you lot!” he said, shielding his eyes with his free hand.  
  
Jack and the Doctor broke apart from their kiss, and Rose’s eyes snapped open.  
  
The Doctor, always quick to recover, shot back, “We’re _in_ a room, last time I looked. Or doesn’t this count?”  
  
Mickey didn’t even bother to respond, shaking his head in resignation as he clicked a button on his mobile, and raised it to his ear. “H’lo?” he said, somewhat tentatively.  
  
Then his face brightened,  
  
“Adeola! Hey, what’s up!” he said, flashing his teeth in a wide grin.  
  
Jack met Rose’s eyes and raised his eyebrows, the faint beginnings of a smirk tugging at his lips. Rose grinned back at him, and laughed with silent delight through the link.  
  
The Doctor sighed. ( _Cold pack/would be nice_ ) he commented.  
  
Jack, with the same fluid grace as before, rolled away so he was sitting next to the Doctor on the sofa. He plucked the cold pack from the table and dropped it into the Doctor’s waiting hand. With another sigh, the Doctor leaned his head back and applied the pack to his bruises.  
  
“Oh, nothin’ much,” Mickey was telling his phone, sounding a lot happier than the casual words warranted. “Just hangin’ out with friends . . . well family. Well, friends’n’family . . .”  
  
_Probably not a good idea to say “with my ex and her family,”_ Rose had to admit to herself. She caught her tongue firmly between her teeth to keep from snickering.  
  
Mickey listened for a bit, nodding as if the person on the other end of the conversation could see him. “Yeah, families can be like that,” he said, in a tone of commiseration. “Tomorrow? Oh, nothin’ much . . . yeah, I’d love to get together! Tell you what, you’re breakin’ up, let me go out where the signal’s better . . .”  
  
He shot a glance at his audience on the sofa as he walked towards the door of the flat. Jack gave him a cheery thumbs-up, and Rose grinned at him. The Doctor readjusted his cold pack slightly.  
  
Mickey returned the thumbs-up. As he passed the stereo, Rose called out, “Turn it up, will you? I like this song.”  
  
Mickey complied, and shut the outer door firmly behind him.  
  
Once Mickey was out of earshot, Jack began chuckling. “Oooo, _Adeola_! I told you she liked him.”  
  
“They’re a lovely couple,” Rose agreed, slipping back to the floor and resting her head on the Doctor’s thigh again. After a moment, she added, reflectively, “I really do like this song . . .”  
  
“S’ nonsensical,” the Doctor told her without raising his head or opening his eyes. “If today was just like every other day, it wouldn’t be very special, would it?”  
  
Rose slapped his leg very lightly with the back of her hand. “Listen to you. Mister Scrooge.”  
  
“I just happen to b’lieve in good grammar is all . . .” he started, but was cut off by Jackie poking her head out of the kitchen.  
  
“Dinner’s ready, if anyone feels like helping me carry it to the table . . .?” she asked, with pointed sarcasm. “Seems to be just me left here.”  
  
Rose bounced to her feet, and Jack followed a second after. “’Course we’ll help. Mickey’s on the phone with Adeola, though.”  
  
“Ha. About time,” was all Jackie said before she disappeared back into the kitchen.  
  
Rose laughed, and she and Jack bumped shoulders companionably on their way to help with Christmas dinner.  
  
\--  
  
As they were setting the table, another of Rose’s favorite Christmas songs came up on the radio, and in a reflection of her general good cheer, she began to sing along. The refrain was simple, and Jack picked it up after the first few repetitions, adding his clear tenor (and slightly better sense of pitch) to the mix.  
  
They almost had everything ready when Mickey burst back through the door of the flat.  
  
“C’mere,” he called, “you’ve got to see this!”  
  
He sounded happy and excited, rather than alarmed. After a few traded glances, they headed for the door, Rose and Jack supporting the Doctor. He was definitely limping less already, proving his claim that he healed far more quickly than humans.  
  
The outside air was cold — much colder than it had been just a few hours ago — and the first few flakes and swirls of snow were beginning to fall. Within minutes, the rate of snowfall sped up, and patches of damp whiteness began to accumulate.  
  
The Doctor squinted at the sky, where faint auroral flickers were visible through the swirling clouds.  
  
“Atmospheric disturbance, nothin’ too surprising,” he said by way of diagnosis. “Take a thumping great ship and drop it into an atmosphere with its ion drive still up and running, you’re gonna see an effect like this. It’ll pass.”  
  
“Pretty, though,” Rose said snuggling closer to his side in the chill.  
  
Down below, in the courtyard, the residents of the Estates were pouring out to enjoy the unexpected white Christmas; laughter and loud, happy voices echoed through the night. It was noise well suited to a celebration rescued from disaster — the sane, reassuring sound of people enjoying themselves in safety.  
  
_We did this,_ Rose thought, and all the fear, chaos, and danger of the day was completely redeemed. She let her feeling spread to her companions, receiving a warm echo from both of them in return. The Doctor’s arms tightened around her and Jack’s shoulders.  
  
( _Job well done,_ ) was the sensation accompanying that hug.  
  
“Oi,” Jackie called from inside the flat. She’d recovered quickly from the novelty of the snowfall, and gone back inside to attend more important matters. “The food’s gonna get cold — an’ I’m not payin’ to heat the great outdoors!”  
  
Obediently, Earth’s defenders went back inside and closed the door behind them.  
  
\---  
  
Much later, the Doctor was ensconced once again on the sofa, with Rose and Jack curled up on either side of him. Rose was wrapped in a blanket her mum had crocheted years ago and Jack nursed a cup of a festive fifty-first century beverage he’d insisted on whipping up, saying it wouldn’t be a celebration without it. Given the ingredients included tinned beef broth, cream, cinnamon, a generous spoonful of sugar, and a healthy slug of rum, Mickey and Jackie had turned the concoction down outright.  
  
The Doctor’d taken a sip and commented, “Yeah, that’s about how I remember it.” Rose, sensing Jack’s disappointment, made it through half a cupful, as a necessary duty. It wasn’t like there was anything poisonous in it, and the rum was pleasantly warming.  
  
It was approaching midnight, Jackie was in bed, and Mickey’d gone off to his flat with a spring in his step, already planning ahead to his date with Adeola. The Doctor gave the telly one last round of dial-flipping with the remote, seeing if there was anything new on about the attempted invasion. Already, the Sycorax ship, blood control, and freak snowstorm were being explained away with a multitude of conflicting theories involving anything but aliens.  
  
Seeing nothing of interest after running through the channels twice at eyeblink speeds, the Doctor switched off the television and tossed the remote onto the table, where it bounced against the sword with a clatter. Rose settled her head against his shoulder and sighed.  
  
“I don’t believe it,” she murmured, mindful of Jackie sleeping. “They’re already forgetting it.”  
  
Jack drained his cup and set it on the table. “It’s amazing,” he agreed, _sotto voce_. “Useful, though. The Time Agency used to take advantage of that mindset all the time. We got away with some of the most blatant stuff now and then, just because nobody wanted to believe that was what had _really_ happened.”  
  
“The time’s coming when everyone’ll have to take notice,” the Doctor said, his tone somewhat grim, though he didn’t elaborate.  
  
Rose sighed. It had turned into such a good Christmas she didn’t want to ruin the mood by thinking too far ahead. “Not today, though, yeah?”  
  
The Doctor settled back a little further, “No,” he agreed, his voice softening as it rarely did, “Not today.”  
  
Rose smiled, and let the sense of deep peace she’d been treasuring grow and spread through the link, like ripples on water. On the other side of the Doctor, Jack took up the thread of the sensation, reflecting it back.  
  
The Doctor relaxed, sinking into the link, which, not coincidentally, was speeding his healing even beyond what could be expected for a Time Lord. He’d be walking normally in a day or so, if this kept up. And there were other things the three of them could do together to make the process go even faster. Nothing they wouldn’t have been doing already, or course, for pure pleasure, but increased healing was a delightful side effect.  
  
Very shortly, they’d relocate to the TARDIS, but there was no hurry. The luxury of simply being together in a quiet moment was wonderful. It was, Rose decided, the nicest moment of her life thus far — and since she usually felt that way at some point each and every day, she considered herself very lucky.  
  
Without being aware of it at first, she began humming the song that had been playing on the radio earlier that day, and the lyrics ran through her mind automatically.  
  
“Y’know,” she commented, after a moment. “That’s a really sad song — being so far away from the person you love on Christmas.” She cuddled closer to the Doctor’s side. “I hope he finds her, the man in the song, I mean.”  
  
The Doctor snorted a little at Rose talking about a character in a song as if he was a real person, but the link didn’t lie, and he wasn’t as disparaging as he sounded.  
  
“’Beg, borrow or steal,’” he commented. “No need of that here.”  
  
There was just the faintest edge of contentment accompanying the thought, and Rose breathed out lightly. Once, she’d never thought she’d hear anything like that from him, lonely and hurt as he was.  
  
_I’ve changed my mind,_ she thought, _that is what I want for Christmas . . ._  
  
Since she’d be getting the other no matter what, it wasn’t exactly a very self-sacrificing thought — but it was sincere.  
  
On the other side of the Doctor, Jack chuckled. “Dunno,” he said with amusement. “I might just be able to inspire some begging later on . . .”  
  
The Doctor snorted in earnest at that.  
  
“Careful, Captain,” he said in a warning tone. “Every sword cuts both ways.”  
  
“Ooh, is that the Wisdom of the Ancients I hear?” Jack responded with affectionate sarcasm.  
  
Rose lifted her head from the Doctor’s shoulder to shoot a good-natured “behave!” glance in Jack’s direction, but the Doctor only chuckled.  
  
“Nah,” he said unexpectedly, and grinned his wide, goofy grin. “I just made it up.” He sounded so absurdly pleased with himself, Rose couldn’t help laughing, quietly.  
  
“Good of you to admit it, for once,” Jack replied, still teasing. The Doctor shot him a narrow-eyed look that was only superficially daunting.  
  
“Think we should call it a night before you two work yourselves into a testosterone-fuelled wrestling match on the sofa and wake my mum?” Rose suggested, sensing where the banter was heading.  
  
“Oh, by all means,” the Doctor said, not quite straight-faced. “Let sleeping mums lie . . .”  
  
Rose buried her face in his side for a moment, groaning, then rolled and stood up. “Enough already! Keep that going and you won’t get your presents.”  
  
“Mmm, I’ve been waiting to unwrap those all day,” Jack said, not quite smothering an evil grin. “I’ve been a good boy.”  
  
“Well, you can stop it,” Rose told him. “These presents are strictly for bad boys.”  
  
“Best we get started, then,” the Doctor told her. “Christmas is almost over.”  
  
Rose and Jack helped him to his feet, and from there to the TARDIS. They closed the door behind them, and the flat was left in deep, dreaming silence, while outside the snow fell soft and white and undisturbed.  


* * *

Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters and settings are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. No money is being made from this work. No copyright infringement is intended.  
  
This story archived at <http://www.whofic.com/viewstory.php?sid=16744>


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